I teach writers how to make their stories matter by harnessing the power and psychology of storytelling, transforming their ideas into a masterpiece, and creating a lifestyle that makes their author dreams come true.
My favourite example is Sissi (1955). The entire movie has a whimsical, dreamlike quality to it, which makes the quick pace love story work. More historical escapsism than historical accuracy following princess Elisabeth and emperor Franz Joseph. Total romcom. In addition, it takes its time before the meet cute, allowing us to get to know the characters as individuals first. The meet cute itself is ridiculously over the top and yet it somehow fits the rosy tone. Sissi is fishing and literally catches her future husband, Franz. She runs to rescue him while a soldier who has been tracking her thinks she is making an attempt at the emperor's life. How can Franz, who lives a stiff life and almost caught in an arranged betrothal not be charmed by beautiful, impulsive and kind Sissi? Que romantic walk in Austrian mountains. Everyone should watch this movie and the entire trilogy. Yes, it is historical fanfic, but it is so wholesome and cute! 🥰🥰 swoon
okay I've been working on a novel that breaks the 4th wall a lot. (it switches from 1st person to 3rd person.) I tend to go more tawrads dialogue and less toward setting. but right now I trying to figure out how to balance her belives out side the novel. and inside the novel I also write her as I think I personally mostly will write a setting to establish where they are then move on to diague she offend doesn't think about stuff till I put her alone any advice also, her insulting the reader which no mary sues!!! but she does make fun of the reader to help engede them so any tips on that I've enjoyed watching your videos and taking tips. thanks also sorry abt the garmar I'm super dyslexic.
also before ppl come at me for the dyslexia thing I also have Irlens sydrom no it's not dyslexia they are 2 separate dysablities and I couldn't read past a first grade leave till the 5th grade (not for lack of trying my parent have put me through tutoring for years) and I just graduated highschool a couple years ago soo it's a work in progress
You know why i liked boromir and Sam wise gamgee and peter and Edmund from Chronicles of Narnia? It was because they were flawe characters who had to overcome a challenge. They changed and grew for the better they were not emotionless husks guaranteed victory
This is very specific but could you give some advice about writing a meet-cute of sorts for hate to love? Basically they need to meet and form an annoying alliance but I don't know how to write that scene. (any smart people in the comments-- all help is appreciated) :)
That moment when Darcy proposes, he has fallen as deeply in love as he ever could while Elizabeth is at the height of hating him for what he did -- the symmetry and juxtaposition, I have no words
I think the worst thing about this is the fact that there’s a name for a protocols type of character according to some people. Just like the”edge lord” or numerous other completely made up terms to describe “stereotypes” not liked by millennials. That’s the most annoying part about this. The generation that hates labels has labeled everything. Ironic 🤔
Hey, I wanted to ask... None of the links for character profile, 3 act story structure, none of the links are working! Is there a new link we could use? Also this is helping me so much, I have watched this series about 3 times now!!!!
@@JusteenCurtis plan, prepare, and pray. Yeah, tis the season. I often feel conflicted. Hurricane Ian was supposed to go literally right into Tampa Bay where we were (single digit miles from my home. Ended up writing my house off to be wiped out and left with my family. At the last moment hooked hard right into Ft Meyers, devastating the area, pulled many people out to sea. Felt relieved and very guilty at the same time. Actually cried in private over it.
@@nicholas2827my thoughts and prayers go out to you. don’t worry the storm will pass, and I hope you and the people you love stay safe during this time
What about the part where the mafia guy gets so jealous that he agrees to take over the family and he sends his goons to kidnap them and lock them in a labyrinth with a cyborg minotaur and they must use chemistry to defeat it.
I only like Mary Sues if they serve as antagonists. Like the classic, stereotypical mean girl. Most of these traits do sound like something that stereotype would do, while others are what they think they do.
I’m pretty sure (99.9% of) women are not very good at writing fighting scenes… There’s not a trained fighting move where you “grab someone by the shoulders and throw them across the room.“ 😂
This makes me think of all the crazy fan fiction self-insert characters that every geek or role play gamer ever made, including myself. I had an old role play ID that I loved to pieces. She was everything my self-diagnosed loser self could never be. I kind of had an I'm-running-from-a-painful-past thing in mind for her, though I never got around to actually sorting it out of my brain and writing it out, and I'm not sure that my 20 something self would have had the maturity or insight to do it well and do right by her. I don't think I can ever fully revive her either. She's part of me that doesn't really exist anymore. Funny how I was going to go on a rant about someone else's character from back in the day and ended up having an insight about my own process from that time.
*A strong, aggressive male character exists* Ew! What a jerk! *A strong, aggressive female character exists* OH MY GOSH! YAS QUEEN! DESTROY THAT MAN! That doesn’t make sense to me 😂
I'm working on a story about a protagonist (who is also an antagonist) who goes on his pursuit of revenge by finding his brother and eventually killing him. But things don't go as planned for the protagonist. This story also shows how the brothers' enemy in high school gradually turns into the protagonist's frenemy when they bond in the present. The protagonist twists the reality of his parents' deaths, by manipulating the narrative to make his brother look like the killer, when it was him all along. In high school, the girl the protagonist loves has actually got a hidden agenda: sabotage the brothers' relationships by betraying the protagonist, fooling around with the other brother, and making the protagonist catch them red-handed. In the present, the protagonist also starts off with a partner in crime, who is also his best friend. Later on, the protagonist has to have an emotional fight with his love interest, based on his love interest's mission that she is hired to kill the protagonist. How do I show Insta-Love Romance/Slow Burn Romance into a story that includes all of the things I've mentioned up above? In the protagonist and his love interest's (before she was his love interest) relationship, how do I add these elements into their romance, without making their love story (inside the main story) slow down the story's pacing and disorientate the things that are also involved in my story? Emotional Progression Meaningful Interactions Trust-Building Trauma-Bonding Forced Proximity Shared Secrets
Titanic is one of my favourite examples of “instalove” done right. All of the examples Kate and Abbie have recommended apply to make that love story epic within a very short timeline
What a fun idea! With the last book challenge poll, I remade the poll for myself and my friend so we could both do the challenge based on each-others' preferences! Now, I'm thinking about remaking these polls and trying the challenge myself, with my friend doing the poll!
I recently changed my mind about 'insta love'. I've always been a slow burn girly- and a lot of ppl love to knock the "so this is love" song in Cinderella, and while I never straight up disliked the scene I understood what they meant. Then once I had my first child I started to mentally shift the song from a romantic love to that of a mother and child. Which later got me thinking, it's all generally agreed that a mother's love is pure and true and strong, but it's also instant. And it doesn't necessarily mean that love will last forever. Sadly. But applying that thinking to the 'insta live trope' can also make sense. Just because they instantly feel connections and attractions even doesn't mean it can't be called love. You can still feel love even if you don't know everything about that person- like how a mother loves her child before they're even a person. Which I think boils down to the meanings of the word love. (A reason I dislike english) I think it's too vast of a word. And it needs other levels to help better portray these sorts of scenarios. Like how lots of other languages have them. But that's just my two pennies 😂😊❤
I think Rey from (not) "Star Wars" (anymore) would have been a better choice, if not THEE perfect choice for your thumbnail, but your point is correct. Mary Sues (and Marty Stus) are awful!!!
What about these situations 1. What if we have multiple main characters how diw we introduce 2. If we have fantasy languages and creation of fantasy universe, should it be at the beginning or end
The weather in Minnesota is also crazy, if it’s not ice cold one moment, it’s blazing hot in the next. We’ve even had a winter with hardly any snow when normally it snows like on thanksgiving, but instead it was extremely foggy and rainy which is unusual for Minnesota. I’d never seen anything like it, it was weird.
well "this video" is a bulls eye with "pacing" and "dialogue" videos when i first started watching you both i wondered why you had never both written "how to write good fiction" but the templates you handed out seemed to suggest it is more convenient to do videos. I seem to capture the essence of the topic quicker - well done
It's not a nickname really, but MMC just refers to MFC by her last name "Miss St. James" and it drives her crazy. "I have a name, you know." It's kind of his way of trying to keep the distance between them, but it makes that moment when he does call her by her first name that much better.
23:00 I find that Pirateaba is very good at this. When I'm reading The Wandering Inn there are a lot of different perspectives and some characters POVs are written in first person while others are written in third person. The third person narration is really good. Its that type of narrator that is aware of the character's emotions and what they are thinking at all times, even assuming the character's personalities and qualities in the narration. It makes you really immersed in that character's mentality and what they are going through, while still allowing that bit of otherness that comes with third person narration. I love it.
Thank you! I have an anthology coming up and it kind of has to be insta love with a HEA. I'm so used to having 90k words to build the relationship haha. Definitely took down some notes <3
A webtoon I love called Brass and Sass does this very well, showing a girl work so hard to become proficient at trumpet, not better than her teachers. But her strength lies in bringing people together, without her organizing band practices and fundraisers, the music department would have likely been cut the next year
The self-control is so admirable and we know we want the kiss to happen, but he controls this incredibly emotional impulse showing us he has complete control of himself and most likely his life and that is so masculine.
